This invention relates to stringed musical instruments and in particular the reconfigurable stringed instrument.
Stringed instruments such as electric guitars are common in the modern musical performance arena, and are available in a wide variety of shapes and styles. Indeed, many serious musicians will own more than one such instrument due to the differing tone qualities and musical effects that may be obtained from different designs and materials of construction. At the same time, electrical guitars can be expensive and players may need to make a substantial monetary investment to obtain the range of instrument types needed for performance of various kinds of music.
Stringed instruments such as guitars have been classically constructed as a single unit comprising a neck and a body, with strings being affixed near the back end of the body (the tailpiece) and near the front end of the neck (the headstock). The strings run over a bridge which elevates them off the substantially flat surface of the instrument and allows them to be struck, picked, or strummed for generation of musical notes. The body is an integral part of the instrument. Various notes are selected by the player through placement of fingers on the strings at locations along the neck on a portion known as the fingerboard. The fingerboard of a guitar generally is a fretboard, where small ridges are provided over which the string is pressed to alter its effective length and thus the frequency of the resulting tone that is generated. Other stringed musical instruments such as violins and cellos are generally not equipped with frets.
In some cases designs for electric guitars have been proposed wherein some portions of the guitar is interchangeable. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,396,621, entitled INTERCHANGEABLE NECK ASSEMBLIES FOR ELECTRICAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, proposes a preassembled playable unit having a headstock, a tailpiece and strings mounted thereon which may be disconnected from one body and attached to another body, the bodies containing the electrical pickup for the musical tones generated by the strings. However, this arrangement does not provide for interchangeability of different necks which may also be desired by players due to the differing configurations and styles of fingerboards.
As another example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,929,362, entitled GUITAR WITH A REMOVABLE FRETBOARD AND PICKUP SECTION POWERED BY A HEADPHONE AMPLIFIER, proposes a fretboard and pickup unit having the headstock, the tailpiece, the strings, and the electrical pickup for the string-generated tones. This assembly may be attached to various body units via physical and electrical connections. Yet, again, there is no feature allowing ready interchange of fingerboard and headstock within the unit.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,538,497, entitled SOFT BODY GUITAR, proposes a guitar wherein a stem, defining a plane for strings, is detachably secured to a body which may be soft to conform to the contours of a human body sitting or standing. Again, no provision is made for more complete interchangeability of the major components of the musical instrument.
Thus, while the limited interchangeability of some component parts of a stringed instrument has been proposed, the benefits and means for complete interchangeability of the major components of a stringed musical instrument so as to reconfigure the instrument have not heretofore been recognized.